[18 April 1921]

...A new photo-element has been invented, which in combination with an amplification lamp makes it possible to detect, at some distance (20-30 meters), the emission of radio (oscillatory) energy.

...With improvement of the apparatus, the following results can be achieved — 1) to see on a screen the moving image of a speaking person in radio-telephony. 2) To have displayed on a screen a moving enemy squadron at a distance of hundreds of versts.

Comrade Gorbunov! Help to improve [this apparatus] and when they bring it to [completion] — tell me.

Lenin.

¹ In a letter to Lenin dated 8 April, A. M. Nikolaev, member of the collegium of the People's Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs, reported on an invention by engineer M. A. Bondch-Bruevich, who was working in the Nizhny Novgorod radio laboratory. Lenin marked with a "+" sign on the letter the place that most interested him and referred to it in a resolution directed to Gorbunov.